Microsoft presented the results for its second quarter of the 2010 fiscal year yesterday, which ended on December 29 2009. As it turns out, thanks to sales of Windows 7, Microsoft experienced a record quarter, which is especially welcome after the previous two lacklustre ones. It sold 60 million Windows 7 licenses during this record quarter.

If you need a simple box to run a single file share to house an Access database that will be used by multiple people, would you go to the effort of installing/configuring/managing a server version of Windows? Or just install XP, install Office, and share a folder? (Yes, we do this, for that one stupid Access database ... personally, I think Access should be nuked!)

Just because it's a "server" doesn't mean it needs a server-optimised OS.

You can only share with 10 users at a time, and that's in xp pro. With home you are limited to 5. It's a desktop OS that comes with limited network sharing capabilities. It isn't a server OS.